Report: AIFF finalizes list of four venues for next year's FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup

Preparations for the next biggest footballing event in the country are already underway.

The 2020 FIFA Women’s U-17 World Cup is the next biggest international football tournament to take place in India and the preparations are already underway. This will be the first time in history that the country will be hosting an international women’s football tournament and naturally the excitement within the folks has begun to rise.

In a major development regarding the event, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) recently announced the four cities to host the matches- New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bhubaneswar.

However, the omission of Goa and Kerala- two of the biggest football crazy states in the country, has brought upon a wave of disappointment amongst the fans. After all, the two states draw huge scores of spectators and with an international tournament like such, it wouldn’t have been a surprise to see packed stadiums here.

A report from the Free Press Journal reads that an official was quoted saying, “It is unfortunate that the football crazy state like Goa has been ignored; even Kerala has not found their name in the list of the venues.”

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“As of now these are the venues and there will not be an addition to this. India qualify automatically as host, besides 15 other teams from six separate continents,” he added.

The tournament will serve as a threshold for not just women’s football but for the sport in general in India.

The Indian women’s team has a very good record of late and are expected to take the centre stage when the tournament kicks off in September next year. However, it will be a tough task for the team when they face defending champions Spain and other teams from Europe and South America.